What are your child or teen’s in-born strengths? How often do you notice what your child has done right before what they have done wrong?

Strength-based parenting is an approach where parents deliberately focus on the positive qualities of their child and help your child to connect with their in-born strengths such as kindness, persistence, agility or humour. You could think of it as ‘strength spotting’.

If, as a family, we help each other to cultivate positive states, then this is protective in terms of mental health as well as life satisfaction and self-confidence. Psychologists, Professor Lea Waters at the University of Melbourne, has developed a web service; The Strength Exchange, as a resource for parents.

There are also a number of online surveys that children can take to help them identify and think about their strengths. The Gallup Institute has the StrengthsExplorer for children aged 10-14 and the StrengthsQuest for children aged 15-25. If parents and children are interested in identifying personality strengths, they can go to The Values in Action Institute and complete the free online VIA-Youth survey.

You can also talk to one of our Psychologists at Caloundra Psychological Services about using strength-based parenting.